Sobs echoed from a nearby blue tent that had been ripped open with long, claw-like marks. Bloody handprints covered the plastic. Shadows danced inside. He leaned hard to the right, quickly sidestepping. Both eyes were wide open so he could pick up any threats from his peripheries, but he fixated on the forms inside.
To a person who didn’t know better, what he viewed might have been two people locked in a lover’s embrace, but this obviously was not the case. A form hunched over the body of an elderly man. The older man struggled, his hands feebly slapping at the other man’s back. The man’s eyes dimmed before Steele rattled off two rounds into the infected’s head. The undead were inside the facility.
The infected, covered in mud, collapsed on top of the man. Steele didn’t think twice as he gave the gasping elder a round to his eyebrow ridge, preventing him from rising up again.
Steele scanned the camp once again. No part of the village was uniform. No easy grid of streets and no fatal funnels. Tarps blew in the breeze and people darted back and forth. It was utter chaos and he was caught in the middle. He brought his rifle optic close to his eye and zeroed in on another man who hurried toward him. Wild eyes captured the man’s face, but he was still human. The man raced past him, breathing heavily.
“The fence,” he hissed at Steele as he passed.
His eyes ran along the long chain link fence, causing a lump to rise in his throat. A mass of the infected pushed their way through an ever widening hole. How the fuck hadn’t anyone seen this group moving up the mountain? We need reinforcements, NOW.
A hundred yards ahead of him, as far as he could see, were mangled forms of gray skinned decaying bodies. Their necks were blotched with brown, puss-filled, lymph nodes the size of plums. Every wound imaginable surged forward at a determined pace, mixed in with the faces of new recruits from the camp.
Shit was breaking bad. He slowly moved backward, retracing his steps, taking on the leaders in the pack. He had no choice, but to give up ground to his overwhelming foe.
Trigger press after trigger press he brought them down before a .50 caliber M2A1 opened up from an elevated guard tower spraying death into the horde’s flank. Bodies exploded as hot rounds buzzed through rotting flesh. Arms were removed from torsos, legs blown from bodies, and people who existed one minute ceased to be there the next.
“Get some, boys,” Steele shouted, and he turned hastening his retreat further inward to the center of the facility while he was covered.
The soldier in the tower had probably saved Steele’s life. Steele turned to deliver more fire as a tan Humvee rolled past him with a screech, lending its support of its M2 .50 caliber turret machine gun. The heavy rattle of multiple .50s dominated the air.
Steele couldn’t hear a thing. He retreated before the mass of bodies, bounding ten yards, turning to sling off five or six rounds as he tried to create some distance between him and the undead. He was acutely aware that he didn’t want to be mistaken for the infected and turned into red mush.
Three times he bounded backward before the Humvee was overrun. The horde swarmed around the truck too many to stop. The gunner spun in his turret unloading his M2 from side to side. The bodies slammed up onto the hood of the military vehicle, and the undead climbed over one another. The M2 went quiet, and in a matter of seconds the disfigured corpses dragged the gunner from the turret and dismembered him, shreds of flesh and clothing flying into the air. Steele knew his tactical retreat was at an end. He turned and ran.
A million things raced through his mind. How many rounds do I have left? Where’s Gwen? Where’s Mauser and Jarl? What’s the quickest way to get to the people mover? This is it. The gig is up. Steele knew he needed to get to Gwen and escape. He ran straight for the civilian disaster management tent.
Pushing his way through a crowd, a man with an ID badge on his breast stepped in front of him.
“Stop sir. Where is your access card?” the bureaucrat said.
“Get out of my way,” Steele shouted, shoving him to the ground without a second glance. People stared at him angrily, but he didn’t care. He placed himself in front of Gwen, his chest heaving.
Gwen looked up at him from her table, startled. “I heard lots of gunfire. Is everything okay?”
She stared at him. Fear filled her eyes. Words couldn’t articulate what was happening. Cold steel blue eyes told her the worst. She stood, and her hands involuntarily reached for her mouth. People in the tent pointed in the direction he had come from. He grabbed her by the hand, pulling her toward the garage that housed the vehicles. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she called back to her coworkers.
No you won’t, he thought as he guided her toward the garage. Begrudgingly, she let herself be whisked away.
“We’re being overrun,” he said as they jogged to the garage, his hand leading her along.
“I’m not a child,” she said from behind him, cursing under her breath. Steele ignored her and released his grip.
Mauser and Jarl were already inside, prepping the mobile lounge. The garage held two Humvees with open engines and missing tires like a chop shop. Eddie stood in the corner with a young private both their eyes wide.
“Eddie, is this thing ready to roll?” Steele asked.
Eddie removed his hat, and wiped his bald head with a hand.
“Yes, of course. I made sure of that. What is happening?”
Steele frowned grabbing a bag. “We have to go. Your friend too if he wants to live.”
The young military mechanic stammered as indecision washed over him, “I, I, can’t leave without orders.”
Steele gave him a dirty look. “Private Bonds?” Steele asked eying his name tag. The young soldier nodded dumbly.
“Get in the mover, Private Bonds, or you’ll die here.”
Bonds’ mouth drooped slightly as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. Fear radiated from him at the prospect of disobeying orders that had been drilled into him since the first day of basic training. “I’m not sure. Where is Sergeant Rice?” he said, looking even younger.
“Probably dead. I’m offering you life. Those outside only offer death. Don’t waste my time Private.”
Bonds timidly looked down. “Okay. I’ll go.”
Steele barked a laugh. “If anybody asks, you can tell them I kidnapped you,” he said, cupping his hands and hoisting the young man up into the mover.
Mauser looked like he had just woken up, his hair sticking out in random places. The darkness of the garage shadowed his features. “How bad?” he asked as they handed bags to Bonds.
“This place is toast. Time to saddle up.”
They threw bags into the people mover. Jarl took up a defensive position near the garage opening, overlooking the edge of the civilian camp. More Humvees rolled by from the military camp, joining the fight. Jarl squeezed off a couple of rounds, leaning forward in a battle stance.
With everyone inside, Steele turned around. “You’re up, big guy,” he called back to Jarl.
Instead, Ahmed came flying around the corner with Lindsay. Ahmed gave Steele a foul scowl as he approached. Steele wasn’t surprised. Gwen has a big mouth. I am sure she is to thank for him being here.
“Figures that you show up when shit starts to get ugly.”
“I wouldn’t be here if somebody did their job,” Ahmed said, locking eyes with Steele. The nerve of this guy.
Steele gave his rival a callous gaze as they pushed Lindsay up.
“Ladies first,” Steele mocked. He boosted Ahmed up. One of his heels swinging dangerously close to Steele’s chin as he scampered into the cabin. I’m sure that was on purpose.
Jarl’s firing picked up in the background. Then silence.
Steele glanced over his shoulder to see what the problem was, but it was too late. Jarl front kicked an infected backward. The diseased man collapsed on the ground with a snarl. Jarl shook his forearm like he had been stung as blood spurted from the wound.
“Jarl. No,” Steele shouted heart sink
ing.
Jarl put a bullet into its skull.
Steele took three steps toward him, but Jarl shook his head in a silent ‘no’ and took off outside. The big man knew his fate.
“Fuck,” Steele shouted. He climbed up into the people mover and Mauser rolled it out of the garage. Steele and the other survivors had a front row seat to the disaster unfolding within the camp. People panicked as they searched for cover within the FEMA buildings as the swarm of undead human locusts extinguished all life within the facility.
“Oh my God, Jarl,” Gwen whispered.
Speechless, Steele’s mouth hung open. Jarl marched directly for the infected mass, hundreds of the soulless trudging for him. He walked straight ahead at a steady pace. His long gun blared away. Mag after mag he exhausted until the last one dropped free of his gun. Jarl went forth to earn his place in Valhalla, where the brave live forever.
Devoid of bullets, Jarl tossed his gun into the grass. He had once told Steele that the gun was an impersonal weapon anyway. He much preferred to be close to his enemies when he dealt them their deathblows. His hands flexed at his sides, his back and shoulder muscles bursting from beneath his tactical vest.
Jarl swept up a sledgehammer that lay near a large tent post. It appeared small in his hands, like a regular hammer. He marched forward, downing an infected with a blow to the face.
All Steele could do was watch as if he had been transported back in time to the Battle of Stamford Bridge. They attacked Jarl without fear. Forerunners grabbed at him. He struck the first with a single forward thrust to the head and the second he punched, caving the man’s skull into a bloody mess. They dropped like sacks of potatoes. The horde of infected ignored their fallen members and continued to reach for him with dead, rotting hands.
Steele held his breath, and they were upon Jarl like a swarm of bees. He swung his hammer mightily back and forth, every swing dealing a backbreaking blow. An infected tore into his arm, and he flexed his bicep knocking the offender off. Even more of the dead took his place biting at his arms and legs. They fell to his left and his right, the bodies piling up around him. He tossed them like an enraged grizzly bear attacked by a pack of dogs. This single man was holding hundreds at bay, like a hero from an ancient saga.
The mover remained where it was, idling. None of the survivors could take their eyes off the heroic battle until Gwen shouted, “Look!”
She pointed to the side of the camp, and the motive behind Jarl’s struggle became clear. A man in a lab coat rushed a woman holding a child to their vehicle.
“Well I’ll be damned. Never thought I’d see that weakling Dr. Jackowski again,” Mauser said.
“What’s that egghead doing out here?” Steele wondered out loud. The doctor had a visible limp, and he wouldn’t make it to the vehicle unless some force kept the horde at bay.
“Can we reach them?” Steele asked. Lindsay balled, tears flowing freely from a seat nearby adding to the chaos.
“Not unless we want to get stuck. Look at that slope.” Getting down won’t be the problem, but getting back out of the facility will. They sat stalled between Jarl’s war against the undead waiting for Dr. Jackowski, unable to move without him.
A low war cry erupted from Jarl’s lips and penetrated the mover as he inflicted a massive blow to the skull of one of the infected, decimating it. His presence was confusing them. They stumbled and slipped over their fellow spawn trying to reach him.
An infected closed in on Dr. Jackowski and his companions. He seemed to smile with his chewed off lips exposing its gums and teeth. Dr. Jackowski looked over his shoulder. Fear plastered all over his face as he hobbled, driving the woman ahead of him.
Steele shoved open the lounge’s front doors. He leaned out away from the doorway. His breath caught in his chest as he tried to stop the optics from involuntarily moving. The red dot briefly crossed Dr. Jackowski’s face and settled momentarily on the infected’s ugly one. Crack. The undead man’s head kicked backward. Steele exhaled.
Steele lowered his rifle and turned toward Jarl, covered in gore and beginning to tire. He watched with a mixture of pride and grief wallowing in his gut as his friend, colleague and brother lost his grip on his weapon. It slipped from his hands and fell to the ground.
His fate sealed, he glanced back, knowing that these were his last moments on earth. Facing the jaws of death, he threw himself into the mass of bodies, and in a final act of valor drove many of them to the ground. More of the infected pushed in around him before he disappeared beneath hundreds of hands and teeth. He was gone. And in his place were a scrawny doctor and a woman with a baby.
Steele dropped to the floor, reaching down to help the woman, child and doctor up into the mobile lounge. Your sacrifice has not been in vain, brother.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Dr. Jackowski said. He collapsed in a seat, chest heaving.
“All of a sudden they were pouring through the camp. We had nowhere to run, but I saw Jarl on the hill like a god send. So we ran for him,” Dr. Jackowski managed between breaths.
“Lucky for you,” Steele grunted. Unlucky for Jarl, he left out. The horde paraded in their direction, having acquired their next victims, and Steele had no doubt there were enough of them to tip it over and kill them all.
The infected swarmed the lounge’s tires like a river of humanity around a mechanical rock. Hefting his rifle, Steele leaned over the side and fired into the tops of their heads. Many now wore the familiar faces of soldiers and civilians from the camp. Their identities stolen by undead kin.
Pop, pop, pop. He continued firing until his mag went dry, then he pushed the mag release and slammed another into the gun in its place. Each shot from his elevated position hit a target; he couldn’t miss at this range with so many so crowded together. He stood about four feet above them, out of their reach, but they grasped for him anyway. Heads exploded, destroyed by his bullets, but it was as if he were shooting at an ocean. He nearly lost his grip on the mover as Mauser lurched the machine forward.
“Hang on,” Mauser called out.
Steele slung his rifle onto his back and held on tight as they barreled forward, smashing through the front gate of the camp. No one tried to stop them. No one manned the gate. Either they fled or they were dead. The Mount Eden Emergency Operations Facility was being annihilated.
Gunfire rattled as they left, but they had no idea if anyone had survived. Mauser floored it away from the facility and down the other side of the mountain road, heading west.
The woman cried as she held her baby, whispering in Spanish, while Dr. Jackowski sat somber, lost in his own thoughts.
Mauser threw in a lipper and passed the tin back to Steele.
“Should have cleaned out the PX before we left,” Mauser said. Steele gave him a faint smile. Mauser seemed unfazed by the camp’s fall, or maybe he was too numb to feel anything at all.
Steele’s heart raced, but every moment away from the horde made him feel slightly more at ease. Ahmed stared forward, eyes resting on Gwen. Lindsay sat cross-legged, rocking back and forth with her head in her hands.
Steele’s hard gaze ran across the road ahead, searching for threats. Gwen took his hand in hers. It softened his demeanor, if only for a moment, as he looked at her hand in his. He would have done anything to keep it there, and he knew he would have to yet.
“We are safe now?” Gwen asked, looking up at him.
“I’m not sure if we will ever be safe again,” he said quietly. Can we ever trust any ‘secure’ place? If Eden can’t shelter us, are we now condemned to live a wanderer’s life? Where else could provide refuge from the dead?
Expelled from Mount Eden, this was the world they now faced, and they drove straight into it. For in this new world, it was either keep moving or die with the rest.
The Breaking
The End Time Saga
Book Two
To All the Men and Women who risk their lives every day, so that we may live in relative peace.
STEELE
West Virginia
A cool wind buffeted him. His body shook, muscles spasming involuntarily. He forced open his crusted eyes. The pale blue sky was outlined by a hundred shades of green, red, and yellow leaves.
Former Counterterrorism Agent Mark Steele blinked slowly. His eyelashes beat away the crust. His head screamed in pain. Gingerly, he shifted his weight to his elbows, the rocks digging into his arms. The dull pain paled compared to the battle raging in his skull. The world spun around him. Dizziness enveloped him, shrouding him inside a fog of pain.
He leaned over on his side, dead leaves and gravel crunching under his body as he puked. Each small movement sent shooting pains throughout his muscles in lightening spasms as if electrodes were strapped to his body. He finished retching and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to remember something.
His eyes floated from trees, to the roadway, back to the trees. Where am I? Steele eyed his surroundings suspiciously, knowing that they could betray him at any moment. The trees buddied up on one another, crowding the mountain parkway and conspiring to take it over, limb by root. The road itself was in need of serious repair. Divots decorated the asphalt and it was chipped and broken along the edges.
Steele’s memory was clouded, like a thick fog had fallen upon him yet wouldn’t let go. Faint thoughts danced on the outskirts of his mind. His mind wouldn’t relinquish any of the secrets of why or how he found himself in a ditch on the side of a mountain. It was the worst kind of betrayal. It was a betrayal of the soul. It stole all purpose and value from its victim.
His mind only allowed him to have crumbling pieces of consciousness that he could feel and touch. He knew it was cold because of his hair standing up on end. His mind was a begrudging enemy of oneself. It’s late September. A rough fall crept upon the land, a thief stalking his rich summer victim.
The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 34
